Encounters with the Afterworld: Beitrag From 'Gilgamesh' to 'Faust' Theodore Ziolkowski Comparatio, Volume 10 (2018), Issue 2, Page 181 - 196 [...] It is well known that in five landmark works of world literature—‘Gilgamesh’, ‘Odyssey’, ‘Aeneid’, ‘Commedia Divina’, ‘Faust’—the protagonist undergoes an encounter with the afterworld of the dead, whether through ‘katabasis’ (a descent into the underworld) or ‘nekyia’ (an encounter with spirits of the dead in some other setting). It has not, however, been remark [...]